Page 47 of Bishop's Flight
“Carwyn—”
“I’m covered.” He laughed. “Brigid, I’ve got rocks in my hair. Take a cold shower with me; you know I prefer it anyway, even when you aren’t burnin’ up.”
Brigid stepped into the bathroom and tugged off her clothes, careful to lay them neatly in a pile on the counter. She stuck her arm in the shower and turned on one knob, then the other, finally figuring out how to get both showerheads working in the walk-in enclosure.
Carwyn walked into the bathroom behind her and flung his dirty pants and socks into a pile on the ground, gravel scattering across the floor.
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey.” She laughed as the turned to him. “You’re filthy.”
“I am.” He stood before her stark naked, massive and grubby, his red hair sticking out in unholy directions. “Still devilishly handsome though.”
Brigid blinked away her tears. “Do ya know how I adore you?”
His blue eyes softened. “Do ya?” His smile was soft and uncertain. “Get in the shower, Brigid Connor. I need to wash up so I can do sinful things to you, and I don’t want to get my chest hair singed.”
She stepped under the cold water and felt the bubbling sizzle as the water hit her skin. Within seconds, the bathroom was filled with steam.
Carwyn stepped in the bath behind her and stuck his head under the tap. “Oh, I’m gonna take two or three rounds with all this.”
“If you’d gone and jumped in a lake, it would have washed out faster.” As soon as she was cooled off, she grabbed a washcloth, soaped it up, and began to work on the streaks of mud across his back.
“Oi.” He wiggled under the water. “Don’t look, but I might be shitting rocks.”
Brigid burst out laughing, and the tension from the previous three nights finally broke loose. She laughed and laughed as she squeezed water over Carwyn’s back and arms, nearly pissing herself when he turned his back to the stream of water and attempted to rinse out the gravel from truly awkward places.
“You were wearing pants!” Her tears had turned to ones of hilarity. “How?”
“That ground hadn’t felt an earth vampire in decades, my love. Maybe centuries. It loved me. And when I say it loved me…” He shifted his hips, and more gravel fell to the tiles. “Itreallyloved me.”
“You know, I don’t mind sharing you with Mother Earth, but she’s getting a wee bit handsy if you ask me.” She held out a bottle of shampoo when the water was mostly running clear. “Bend down. Let’s get your hair.”
Carwyn kept his eyes on her as she poured shampoo into his hair and began to knead his scalp, scratching at the grit and caressing his nape and the sensitive places behind his ears that she loved to kiss.
“What were you thinking of to get you so heated, Brigid?”
She rubbed his scalp, pushed his head under the water to rinse, then poured more shampoo into her palm. She nearly slipped trying to reach the top of his head, so he knelt down, his knees hitting the tile floor and his head near her belly.
“Much better,” she whispered. She rubbed the shampoo through his hair, the wavy red locks thick and a little coarse between her fingers. She loved her mate’s hair. While she couldn’t keep hers long to save her life—seeing as she burned it anytime her fire let loose—Brigid adored Carwyn’s thick, wavy hair with its red and gold and brown streaks.
She ran her fingers through it, then tipped his head back to rinse it clean.
Carwyn had his hands warm and steady on her hips, but his eyes hadn’t left her face for a second. “What were you thinking of, darling girl?”
She closed her eyes, the water around them starting to steam again. “I was remembering what it felt like to be afraid to fall asleep.”
He wrapped his arm around her torso and pressed his cheek between her breasts, hugging her tightly as she allowed the pain of those memories to wash away with the stones.
She fell asleep wrappedaround her mate, not caring that he’d have to unwind her dead weight in the early evening to free himself. He didn’t need as much sleep as she did, which meant that he usually woke at least an hour before her.
Usually he rose and started with his evening, but that night he was still with her when she woke, stroking her hair and running his hand up and down her back.
They hadn’t done any “sinful things” at dawn. She’d been too emotionally wrought and he knew it. Part of the reason Brigid was good at what she did was because she could empathize with victims.
She worried that sometimes that empathy blinded her.
Blinking her eyes awake, she looked up and saw Carwyn watching her.
“Evenin’, wife.”
